"Si ma fi-fi-fiancée me voyait,Elle m' dirait en me donnant cinq sous:'Va t' faire raser!' mais moi, j' répondraisQue moi j'ai toujours les mêmes deux joues."
"Si ma fi-fi-fiancée me voyait,Elle m' dirait en me donnant cinq sous:'Va t' faire raser!' mais moi, j' répondraisQue moi j'ai toujours les mêmes deux joues."
V. was away for an hour and a half and when he did return it was to announce thathe had been unable to phone because the line was blocked under pressure of important operations. Deciding to report in person, we declined an offer of hospitality from the French officers, but gratefully accepted a guard for the machine, and the loan of a car.
A young lieutenant accompanied us as far as Amiens. There we stopped for supper, and were joined by some civilian friends of our French companion. Thefilet de sole au vin blancengendered a feeling of deep content. Now that it was over, I felt pleased with the day's excitement and the contrast it afforded. Three hours beforehand it seemed likely that the evening would see us prisoners. Yet here we were, supping in a comfortable hotel with three charming ladies and the widow Clicquot.
Arrived at the aerodrome, we visited the hut inhabited by the Squadron Commander, who wore pyjamas and a smile of welcome. We were just in time, he said, to rescue our names from the list of missing. Our tale impressed him so much that, after making arrangements for the stranded bus to bebrought back by a repair party, he remarked: "You can both have a rest to-morrow."
"Welcome home, you rotten night-bird," said my tent companion, and mentioned in a hurt tone that our flight was booked for the 5A.M.reconnaissance. But my last thought before sinking into sleep was of the blessed words: "You can have a rest to-morrow."
For thirty hours the flight had "stood by" for a long reconnaissance. We were dragged from bed at 4.30 of dawn, only to return gratefully beneath the blankets three-quarters of an hour later, when a slight but steady rain washed away all chance of an immediate job. The drizzle continued until after sundown, and our only occupations throughout the day were to wade from mess to aerodrome, aerodrome to mess, and to overhaul in detail machines, maps, guns, and consciences.
Next morning again we dressed in the half-light, and again went back to bed in the daylight. This time the show had been postponed because of low clouds and a thick ground-mist that hung over the reeking earth. It was a depressing dawn—clammy, moist, and sticky.
But by early afternoon the mist had congealed, and the sheet of clouds was torn torags by a strong south-west wind. The four craft detailed for the reconnaissance were therefore lined outside their shed, while their crews waited for flying orders. I was to be in the leading bus, for when C.'s death left vacant the command of A Flight, the good work of my pilot had brought him a flight-commandership, a three-pipped tunic, and a sense of responsibility which, to my relief, checked his tendency to over-recklessness. He now came from the squadron office with news of a changed course.
"To get the wind behind us," he explained, "we shall cross well to the south of Péronne. Next, we go to Boislens. After that we pass by Nimporte, over the Forêt de Charbon to Siègecourt; then up to Le Recul and back by Princebourg, St. Guillaume, and Toutprès.
"As regards the observers, don't forget to use your field-glasses on the rolling stock; don't forget the precise direction of trains and motor transport; don't forget the railways and roads on every side; don't forget the canals; and for the Lord's and everybody else's sake, don't be surprised by Hunaircraft. As regards the pilots—keep in close formation when possible; don't straggle and don't climb above the proper height."
The pilots ran their engines once more, and the observers exchanged information about items such as Hun aerodromes and the number of railway stations at each large town. An air reconnaissance is essentially the observer's show; its main object being to supply the "I" people at headquarters with private bulletins from the back of the German front. The collection of reconnaissance reports is work of a highly skilled nature, or ought to be. Spying out the land is much more than a search of railways, roads, and the terrain generally. The experienced observer must know the German area over which he works rather better than he knows Salisbury Plain. The approximate position of railway junctions and stations, aerodromes, factories, and depôts should be familiar to him, so that he can without difficulty spot any new feature. Also he must be something of a sleuth, particularly when using smoke as a clue. In the early morning a thin layer of smoke above a wood may meana bivouac. If it be but a few miles behind the lines, it can evidence heavy artillery. A narrow stream of smoke near a railway will make an observer scan the line closely for a stationary train, as the Boche engine-drivers usually try to avoid detection by shutting off steam. The Hun has many other dodges to avoid publicity. When Allied aircraft appear, motor and horse transport remain immobile at the roadside or under trees. Artillery and infantry are packed under cover; though, for that matter, the enemy very rarely move troops in the daytime, preferring the night or early morning, when there are no troublesome eyes in the air.
To foil these attempts at concealment is the business of the observers who gather information for Army Headquarters and G. H.Q. For observers on corps work the detective problems are somewhat different. This department deals with hidden saps and battery positions, and draws and photographs conclusions from clues such as a muzzle-blast, fresh tracks, or an artificial cluster of trees. All reconnaissance observers must carry out a simultaneous search of theearth for movement and the sky for foes, and in addition keep their guns ready for instant use. And should anything happen to their machines, and a forced landing seem likely, they must sit tight and carry on so long as there is the slightest hope of a safe return.
A nos moutons. I made a long list in my note-book of the places where something useful was likely to be observed, and tried my gun by firing a few shots into the ground. We hung around, impatient at the long delay.
"Get into your machines," called the Squadron Commander at last, when a telephone message had reported that the weather conditions toward the east were no longer unfavourable. We took to the air and set off.
V. led his covey beyond Albert and well south of the Somme before he turned to the left. Then, with the strong wind behind us, we raced north-east and crossed the strip of trenches. The pilot of the emergency machine, which had come thus far to join the party if one of the other four dropped out,waved his hand in farewell and left for home.
Archie barked at us immediately, but he caused small trouble, as most of his attention was already claimed by a party of French machines half a mile ahead. Anyhow we should have shaken him off quickly, for at this stage of the journey, with a forty-mile wind reinforcing our usual air speed of about ninety-five miles an hour, our ground speed was sufficient to avoid lingering in any region made unhealthy by A.-A. guns. The water-marked ribbon of trenches seemed altogether puny and absurd during the few seconds when it was within sight. The winding Somme was dull and dirty as the desolation of its surrounding basin. Some four thousand feet above the ground a few clouds moved restlessly at the bidding of the wind.
Passing a few small woods, we arrived without interruption over the railway junction of Boislens. With arms free of the machine to avoid unnecessary vibration, the observers trained their glasses on the station and estimated the amount of rolling stock. A close search of the railway arteries onlyrevealed one train. I grabbed pencil and note-book and wrote: "Boislens, 3.5P.M.6 R.S., 1 train going S.W."
Just west of our old friend Mossy-Face were two rows of flagrantly new trenches. As this is one of the points where the enemy made a stand after their 1917 spring retreat, it can be assumed that even as far back as last October they were preparing new lines of defence, Hindenburg or otherwise. Not far west of these defence works were two troublesome aerodromes at Bertincourt and Velu, both of which places have since been captured.
A hunt for an aerodrome followed. V., who knew the neighbourhood well, having passed above it some two-score times, was quick to spot a group of hitherto unnoted sheds north of Boislens, towards Mossy-Face. He circled over them to let me plot the pin-point position on the map and sketch the aerodrome and its surroundings. The Hun pilots, with thoughts of a possible bomb-raid, began to take their machines into the air for safety.
"Got 'em all?" Thus V., shouting throughthe rubber speaking-tube, one end of which was fixed inside my flying-cap, so that it always rested against my ear.
"Correct. Get on with the good work."
The good work led us over a region for ever associated with British arms. Some of the towns brought bitter memories of that anxious August three years back. Thus Nimporte, which saw a desperate but successful stand on one flank of the contemptible little army to gain time for the main body; Ventregris, scene of a cavalry charge that was a glorious tragedy; Làbas, where a battery of horse-gunners made for itself an imperishable name; Siègecourt, where the British might have retired into a trap but didn't; and Le Recul itself, whence they slipped away just in time.
In the station at Nimporte a train was waiting to move off, and two more were on their way to the military base of Plusprès. Both attempted to hide their heads by shutting off steam immediately the drone of our engines made itself heard; but we had spotted them from afar, and already they were noted for the information of Brass Hats.
The next item of interest was activity at a factory outside a little town. Black trails of smoke stretched away from the chimneys; and surely, as we approached a minute ago, a short column of lorries was passing along a road towards the factory. Yet when we reached the spot there was no sign of road transport. Nevertheless, I was certain I had seen some motor vehicles, and I entered the fact in my note-book. Likewise I took care to locate the factory site on my map, in case it deserved the honour of a bomb attack later.
Our bus led the way across the huge unwieldy Forêt de Charbon, patterned in rectangular fashion by intersecting roads, and we arrived at Siègecourt. This is at once a fortress and an industrial town. There are several railway stations around it, and these added greatly to the observers' collection of trains and trucks. The Huns below, with unpleasant memories of former visits from British aircraft, probably expected to be bombed. They threw up at us a large quantity of high-explosive shells, but the shots were all wide and we remained unworried.To judge by the quality of the A.-A. shooting each time I called there, it seemed likely that half-trained A.-A. gunners were allowed to cut their active service teeth on us at Siègecourt.
Having squeezed Siègecourt of all movement, we headed for Le Recul. Here the intricate patchwork of railway kept the observers busy, and six more trains were bagged. Then, as this was the farthest point east to be touched, we turned to the left and travelled homeward.
It was soon afterwards that our engine went dud. Instead of a rhythmic and continuous hum there was at regular intervals a break, caused by one of the cylinders missing explosion at each turn of the rotary engine. The rev.-counter showed that the number of revolutions per minute had fallen off appreciably. Decreased revs. meant less speed, and our only chance to keep with the others was to lose height continuously. We were then nearly fifty miles from the lines.
I noticed the gap in the engine's drone as soon as it began. An airman is accustomed to the full roar of his engine, and it neverdistracts his attention, any more than the noise of a waterfall distracts those who live near it. But if the roar becomes non-continuous and irregular he is acutely conscious of the sound.
When the machine began to lose height I knew there was a chronic miss. V. looked round and smiled reassuringly, though he himself was far from reassured. He tried an alteration in the carburettor mixture, but this did not remedy matters. Next, thinking that the engine might have been slightly choked, he cut off the petrol supply for a moment and put down the nose of the machine. The engine stopped, but picked up when the petrol was once more allowed to run. During the interval I thought the engine had ceased work altogether, and was about to stuff things into my pocket in readiness for a landing on hostile ground.
We continued in a westerly direction, with the one cylinder still cutting out. To make matters worse, the strong wind that had been our friend on the outward journey was now an enemy, for it was drifting us to the north, so that we were obliged tosteer almost dead into it to follow the set course.
As we passed along the straight canal from Le Recul to Princebourg many barges were in evidence. Those at the side of the canal were taken to be moored up, and those in the middle to be moving, though the slowness of their speed made it impossible to decide on their direction, for from a height of ten thousand feet they seemed to be stationary. About a dozen Hun machines were rising from aerodromes at Passementerie, away to the left, but if they were after us the attempt to reach our height in time was futile.
Between Le Recul and Princebourg we dropped fifteen hundred feet below the three rear machines, which hovered above us. Though I was far from feeling at home, it was necessary to sweep the surrounding country for transport of all kinds. This was done almost automatically, since I found myself unable to give a whole-hearted attention to the job, while the infernal motif of the engine's rag-time drone dominated everything and invited speculation on how muchlower we were than the others, and whether we were likely to reach a friendly landing-ground. And all the while a troublesome verse chose very inopportunely to race across the background of my mind, in time with the engine, each cut-out being the end of a line. Once or twice I caught myself murmuring—
"In that poor but honest 'ome,Where 'er sorrowin' parints live,They drink the shampyne wine she sends,But never, never can fergive."
"In that poor but honest 'ome,Where 'er sorrowin' parints live,They drink the shampyne wine she sends,But never, never can fergive."
Slightly to the east of Princebourg, a new complication appeared in the shape of a small German machine. Seeing that our bus was in difficulties, it awaited an opportunity to pounce, and remained at a height slightly greater than ours, but some distance behind the bus that acted as rearguard to the party. Its speed must have been about ten miles an hour more than our own, for though the Hun pilot had probably throttled down, he was obliged to make his craft snake its way in short curves, so that it should not come within dangerous range of our guns. At times he varied this method by lifting the machine almost to stalling point, lettingher down again, and repeating the process. Once I saw some motor transport on a road. I leaned over the side to estimate their number, but gave up the task of doing so with accuracy under the double strain of watching the Hun scout and listening to the jerky voice of the engine.
As we continued to drop, the German evidently decided to finish us. He climbed a little and then rushed ahead. I fired at him in rapid bursts, but he kept to his course. He did not come near enough for a dive, however, as the rest of the party, two thousand feet above, had watched his movements, and as soon as he began to move nearer two of them fell towards him. Seeing that his game was spoiled the Boche went down steeply, and only flattened out when he was low enough to be safe from attack.
Near St Guillaume an anti-aircraft battery opened fire. The Hun pilot then thought it better to leave Archie to deal with us, and he annoyed us no more. Some of the shell-bursts were quite near, but we could not afford to lose height in distance-dodging, with our machine in a dubiouscondition twenty-five miles on the wrong side of the trenches.
Toutprès, to the south-west, was to have been included in the list of towns covered, but under the adverse circumstances V. decided not to battle against the wind more than was necessary to get us home. He therefore veered to the right, and steered due west. The south-west wind cut across and drifted us, so that our actual course was north-west. Our ground speed was now a good deal greater than if we had travelled directly west, and there was no extra distance to be covered, because of a large eastward bend in the lines as they wound north. We skirted the ragged Forêt de Quand-Même, and passed St Guillaume on our left.
The behaviour of the engine went from bad to worse, and the vibration became more and more intense. Once again I thought it would peter out before we were within gliding distance of British territory, and I therefore made ready to burn the machine—the last duty of an airman let in for the catastrophe of a landing among enemies. But the engine kept alive,obstinately and unevenly. V. held down the nose of the machine still farther, so as to gain the lines in the quickest possible time.
Soon we were treated to a display by the family ghost of the clan Archibald, otherwise an immense pillar of grey-white smoky substance that appeared very suddenly to windward of us. It stretched up vertically from the ground to a height about level with ours, which was then only five and a half thousand feet. We watched it curiously as it stood in an unbending rigidity similar to that of a giant waxwork, cold, unnatural, stupidly implacable, half unbelievable, and wholly ridiculous. At the top it sprayed round, like a stick of asparagus. For two or three months similar apparitions had been exhibited to us at rare intervals, nearly always in the same neighbourhood. At first sight the pillars of smoke seemed not to disperse, but after an interval they apparently faded away as mysteriously as they had appeared. What was meant to be their particular branch of frightfulness I cannot say. One rumour was that they were an experiment in aerial gassing, and anotherthat they were of some phosphorous compound. All I know is that they entertained us from time to time, with no apparent damage.
Archie quickly distracted our attention from the phantom pillar. We had been drifted to just south of Lille, possibly the hottest spot on the whole western front as regards anti-aircraft fire. Seeing one machine four to five thousand feet below its companions, the gunners very naturally concentrated on it. A spasmodic chorus of barking coughs drowned the almost equally spasmodic roar of the engine. V. dodged steeply and then raced, full out, for the lines. A sight of the dirty brown jig-saw of trenches heartened us greatly. A few minutes later we were within gliding distance of the British front. When we realised that even if the engine lost all life we could reach safety, nothing else seemed to matter, not even the storm of shell-bursts.
Suddenly the machine quivered, swung to the left, and nearly put itself in a flat spin. A large splinter of H.E. had sliced away part of the rudder. V. banked to preventan uncontrolled side-slip, righted the bus as far as possible, and dived for the lines. These we passed at a great pace, but we did not shake off Archie until well on the right side, for at our low altitude the high-angle guns had a large radius of action that could include us. However, the menacing coughs finally ceased to annoy, and our immediate troubles were over. The strain snapped, the air was an exhilarating tonic, the sun was warmly comforting, and everything seemed attractive, even the desolated jumble of waste ground below us. I opened a packet of chocolate and shared it with V., who was trying hard to fly evenly with an uneven rudder. I sang to him down the speaking-tube, but his nerves had stood enough for the day, and he wriggled the machine from one side to the other until I became silent. Contrariwise to the last, our engine recovered slightly now that its recovery was not so important, and it behaved well until it seized up for better or worse when we had landed.
From the aerodrome the pilots proceeded to tea and a bath, while we, the unfortunateobservers, copied our notes into a detailed report, elaborated the sketches of the new aerodromes, and drove in our unkempt state to Headquarters, there to discuss the reconnaissance with spotlessly neat staff officers. At the end of the report one must give the height at which the job was done, and say whether the conditions were favourable or otherwise for observation. I thought of the absence of thick clouds or mist that might have made the work difficult. Then I thought of the cylinder that missed and the chunk of rudder that was missing, but decided that these little inconveniences were unofficial. And the legend I felt in duty bound to write was: "Height 5,000-10,000 ft. Observation easy."
An inhuman philosopher or a strong, silent poseur might affect to treat with indifference his leave from the Front. Personally I have never met a philosopher inhuman enough or a poseur strongly silent enough to repress evidence of wild satisfaction, after several months of war at close quarters, on being given a railway warrant entitling him to ten days of England, home, and no duty. But if you are a normal soldier who dislikes fighting and detests discomfort, the date of your near-future holiday from the dreary scene of war will be one of the few problems that really matter.
Let us imagine a slump in great pushes at your sector of the line, since only during the interval of attack is the leave-list unpigeonholed. The weeks pass and your turn creeps close, while you pray that the lull may last until the day when, with a heavy haversack and a light heart, you set off tobecome a transient in Arcadia. The desire for a taste of freedom is sharpened by delay; but finally, after disappointment and postponement, the day arrives and you depart. Exchanging a "So long" with less fortunate members of the mess, you realise a vast difference in respective destinies. To-morrow the others will be dodging crumps, archies, or official chits "for your information, please"; to-morrow, with luck, you will be dodging taxis in London.
During the journey you begin to cast out the oppressive feeling that a world and a half separates you from the pleasantly undisciplined life you once led. The tense influence of those twin bores of active service, routine and risk, gradually loosens hold, and your state of mind is tuned to a pitch half-way between the note of battle and that of a bank-holiday.
Yet a slight sense of remoteness lingers as you enter London. At first view the Charing Cross loiterers seem more foreign than the peasants of Picardy, the Strand and Piccadilly less familiar than the Albert-Pozières road. Not till a day or two later,when the remnants of strained pre-occupation with the big things of war have been charmed away by old haunts and old friends, do you feel wholly at home amid your rediscovered fellow-citizens, the Man in the Street, the Pacifist, the air-raid-funk Hysteric, the Lady Flag-Seller, the War Profiteer, the dear-boy Fluff Girl, the Prohibitionist, the England-for-the-Irish politician, the Conscientious Objector, the hotel-government bureaucrat, and other bulwarks of our united Empire. For the rest, you will want to cram into ten short days the average experiences of ten long weeks. If, like most of us, you are young and foolish, you will skim the bubbling froth of life and seek crowded diversion in the lighter follies, the passing shows, and l'amour qui rit. And you will probably return to the big things of war tired but mightily refreshed, and almost ready to welcome a further spell of routine and risk.
The one unsatisfactory aspect of leave from France, apart from its rarity, is the travelling. This, in a region congested by the more important traffic of war, is slowand burdensome to the impatient holiday-maker. Occasionally the Flying Corps officer is able to substitute an excursion by air for the land and water journey, if on one of the dates that sandwich his leave a bus of the type already flown by him must be chauffeured across the Channel. Such an opportunity is welcome, for besides avoiding discomfort, a joy-ride of this description often saves time enough to provide an extra day in England.
On the last occasion when I was let loose from the front on ticket-of-leave, I added twenty-four hours to my Blighty period by a chance meeting with a friendly ferry-pilot and a resultant trip as passenger in an aeroplane from a home depôt. Having covered the same route by train and boat a few days previously, a comparison between the two methods of travel left me an enthusiast for aerial transport in the golden age of after-the-war.
The leave train at Arrière was time-tabled for midnight, but as, under a war-time edict, French cafés and places where they lounge are closed at 10P.M., it was at this hour thatmuddied officers and Tommies from every part of the Somme basin began to crowd the station.
Though confronted with a long period of waiting, in a packed entrance-hall that was only half-lit and contained five seats to be scrambled for by several hundred men, every one, projected beyond the immediate discomfort to the good time coming, seemed content. The atmosphere of jolly expectancy was comparable to that of Waterloo Station on the morning of Derby Day. Scores of little groups gathered to talk the latest shop-talk from the trenches. A few of us who were acquainted with the corpulent and affable R.T.O.—it is part of an R.T.O.'s stock-in-trade to be corpulent and affable—sought out his private den, and exchanged yarns while commandeering his whisky. Stuff Redoubt had been stormed a few days previously, and a Canadian captain, who had been among the first to enter the Hun stronghold, told of the assault. A sapper discussed some recent achievements of mining parties. A tired gunner subaltern spoke viciously of a stupendous bombardment that allowedlittle rest, less sleep, and no change of clothes. Time was overcome easily in thus looking at war along the varying angles of the infantryman, the gunner, the engineer, the machine-gun performer, and the flying officer, all fresh from their work.
The train, true to the custom of leave trains, was very late. When it did arrive, the good-natured jostling for seats again reminded one of the London to Epsom traffic of Derby Day. Somehow the crowd was squeezed into carriage accommodation barely sufficient for two-thirds of its number, and we left Arrière. Two French and ten British officers obtained a minimum of space in my compartment. We sorted out our legs, arms, and luggage, and tried to rest.
In my case sleep was ousted by thoughts of what was ahead. Ten days' freedom in England! The stout major on my left snored. The head of the hard-breathing Frenchman to the right slipped on to my shoulder. An unkempt subaltern opposite wriggled and turned in a vain attempt to find ease. I was damnably cramped, but above all impatient for the morrow. Apassing train shrieked. Cold whiffs from the half-open window cut the close atmosphere. Slowly, and with frequent halts for the passage of war freights more urgent than ourselves, our train chugged northward. One hour, two hours, three hours of stuffy dimness and acute discomfort. Finally I sank into a troubled doze. When we were called outside Boulogne, I found my hand poised on the stout major's bald head, as if in benediction.
The soldier on leave, eager to be done with the preliminary journey, chafes at inevitable delay in Boulogne. Yet this largest of channel ports, in its present state, can show the casual passer-by much that is interesting. It has become almost a new town during the past three years. Formerly a headquarters of pleasure, a fishing centre and a principal port of call for Anglo-Continental travel, it has been transformed into an important military base. It is now wholly of the war; the armies absorb everything that it transfers from sea to railway, from human fuel for war's blast-furnace to the fish caught outside the harbour. Themultitude of visitors from across the Channel is larger than ever; but instead of Paris, the Mediterranean, and the East, they are bound for less attractive destinations—the muddy battle-area and Kingdom Come.
The spirit of the place is altogether changed. From time immemorial Boulogne has included an English alloy in its French composition, but prior to the war it shared with other coastal resorts of France an outlook of smiling carelessness. Superficially it now seems more British than French, and, partly by reason of this, it impresses one as being severely business-like. The great number of khaki travellers is rivalled by a huge colony of khaki Base workers. Except for a few matelots, French fishermen, and the wharfside cafés, there is nothing to distinguish the quays from those of a British port.
The blue-bloused porters who formerly met one with volubility and the expectation of a fabulous tip have given place to khakied orderlies, the polite customs officials to old-soldier myrmidons of the worried embarkation officer. Store dumps with Englishmarkings are packed symmetrically on the cobbled stones. The transport lorries are all British, some of them still branded with the names of well-known London firms. Newly-built supply depôts, canteens, and military institutes fringe the town proper or rise behind the sand-ridges. One-time hotels and casinos along the sea-front between Boulogne and Wimereux have become hospitals, to which, by day and by night, the smooth-running motor ambulances bring broken soldiers. Other of the larger hotels, like the Folkestone and the Meurice, are now patronised almost exclusively by British officers.
The military note dominates everything. A walk through the main streets leaves an impression of mixed uniforms—bedraggled uniforms from trench and dug-out, neat rainbow-tabbed uniforms worn by officers attached to the Base, graceful nursing uniforms, haphazard convalescent uniforms, discoloured blue uniforms of French permissionaires. Everybody is bilingual, speaking, if not both English and French, either one or other of these languages and the formless Anglichepatois invented by Tommy and his hosts of the occupied zone. And everybody, soldier and civilian, treats as a matter of course the strange metamorphosis of what was formerly a haven for the gentle tourist.
The boat, due to steam off at eleven, left at noon,—a creditable performance as leave-boats go. On this occasion there was good reason for the delay, as we ceded the right of way to a hospital ship and waited while a procession of ambulance cars drove along the quay and unloaded their stretcher cases. The Red Cross vessel churned slowly out of the harbour, and we followed at a respectful distance.
Passengers on a Channel leave-boat are quieter than might be expected. With the country of war behind them they have attained the third degree of content, and so novel is this state after months of living on edge that the short crossing does not allow sufficient time for them to be moved to exuberance. One promenades the crowded deck happily, taking care not to tread on the staff spurs, and talks of fighting as if it were a thing of the half-forgotten past.
But there is no demonstration. In a well-known illustrated weekly a recent frontispiece, supposedly drawn "from material supplied," depicts a band of beaming Tommies, with weird water-bottles, haversacks, mess-tins, and whatnots dangling from their sheepskin coats, throwing caps and cheers high into the air as they greet the cliffs of England. As the subject of an Academy picture, or an illustration for "The Hero's Homecoming, or How a Bigamist Made Good," the sketch would be excellent. But, except for the beaming faces, it is fanciful. A shadowy view of the English coast-line draws a crowd to the starboard side of the boat, whence one gazes long and joyfully at the dainty cliffs. Yet there is no outward sign of excitement; the deep satisfaction felt by all is of too intimate a nature to call for cheering and cap-throwing. The starboard deck remains crowded as the shore looms larger, and until, on entry into Dovstone harbour, one prepares for disembarkation.
The Front seemed very remote from the train that carried us from Dovstone to London. How could one think of the wildernesswith the bright hop-fields of Kent chasing past the windows? Then came the mass-meeting of brick houses that skirt London, and finally the tunnel which is the approach to the terminus. As the wheels rumbled through the darkness of it they suggested some lines of stray verse beginning—
"Twenty to eleven by all the clocks of Piccadilly;Buy your love a lily-bloom, buy your love a rose."
"Twenty to eleven by all the clocks of Piccadilly;Buy your love a lily-bloom, buy your love a rose."
It had been raining, and the faint yet unmistakable tang sniffed from wet London streets made one feel at home more than anything else. We dispersed, each to make his interval of heaven according to taste, means, and circumstances. That same evening I was fortunate in being helped to forget the realities of war by two experiences. A much-mustached A.P.M. threatened me with divers penalties for the wearing of a soft hat; and I was present at a merry gathering of theatrical luminaries, enormously interested in themselves, but enormously bored by the war, which usurped so much newspaper space that belonged by rights to the lighter drama.
Curtain and interval of ten days, at theend of which I was offered a place as passenger in a machine destined for my own squadron. The bus was to be taken to an aircraft depôt in France from Rafborough Aerodrome. Rafborough is a small town galvanised into importance by its association with flying. Years ago, in the far-away days when aviation itself was matter for wonder, the pioneers who concerned themselves with the possibilities of war flying made their headquarters at Rafborough. An experimental factory, rich in theory, was established, and near it was laid out an aerodrome for the more practical work. Thousands of machines have since been tested on the rough-grassed aerodrome, while the neighbouring Royal Aircraft Factory has continued to produce designs, ideas, aeroplanes, engines, and aircraft accessories. Formerly most types of new machines were put through their official paces at Rafborough, and most types, including some captures from the Huns, were to be seen in its sheds. Probably Rafborough has harboured a larger variety of aircraft and aircraft experts than any other place in the world.
My friend the ferry-pilot having announced that the carriage waited, I strapped our baggage, some new gramophone records, and myself into the observer's office. I also took—tell this not in Gath, for the transport of dogs by aeroplane has been forbidden—a terrier pup sent to a fellow-officer by his family. At first the puppy was on a cord attached to some bracing-wires; but as he showed fright when the machine took off from the ground, I kept him on my lap for a time. Here he remained subdued and apparently uninterested. Later, becoming inured to the engine's drone and the slight vibration, he roused himself and wanted to explore the narrowing passage toward the tail-end of the fuselage. The little chap was, however, distinctly pleased to be on land again at Saint Gregoire, where he kept well away from the machine, as if uncertain whether the strange giant of an animal were friendly or a dog-eater.
It was a morning lovely enough to be that of the world's birthday. Not a cloud flecked the sky, the flawless blue of which was made tenuous by sunlight. The sun brightenedthe kaleidoscopic earthscape below us, so that rivers and canals looked like quicksilver threads, and even the railway lines glistened. The summer countryside, as viewed from an aeroplane, is to my mind the finest scene in the world—an unexampled scene, of which poets will sing in the coming days of universal flight. The varying browns and greens of the field-pattern merge into one another delicately; the woods, splashes of bottle-green, relieve the patchwork of hedge from too ordered a scheme; rivers and roads criss-cross in riotous manner over the vast tapestry; pleasant villages and farm buildings snuggle in the valleys or straggle on the slopes. The wide and changing perspective is full of a harmony unspoiled by the jarring notes evident on solid ground. Ugliness and dirt are camouflaged by the clean top of everything. Grimy towns and jerry-built suburbs seem almost attractive when seen in mass from a height. Slums, the dead uniformity of long rows of houses, sordid back-gardens, bourgeois public statues—all these eyesores are mercifully hidden by the roofed surface. The very factory chimneyshave a certain air of impressiveness, in common with church towers and the higher buildings. Once, on flying over the pottery town of Coalport—the most uninviting place I have ever visited—I found that the altered perspective made it look delightful.
A westward course, with the fringe of London away on our left, brought us to the coast-line all too soon. Passing Dovstone, the bus continued across the Channel. A few ships, tiny and slow-moving when observed from a machine at 8000 feet and travelling 100 miles an hour, spotted the sea. A cluster of what were probably destroyers threw out trails of dark smoke. From above mid-Channel we could see plainly the two coasts—that of England knotted into small creeks and capes, that of France bent into large curves, except for the sharp corner at Grisnez. Behind was Blighty, with its greatness and its—sawdust. Ahead was the province of battle, with its good-fellowship and its—mud. I lifted the puppy to show him his new country, but he merely exhibited boredom and a dislike of the sudden rush of air.
From Cape Grisnez we steered north-east towards Calais, so as to have a clearly defined course to the aircraft depôt of Saint Gregoire. After a cross-Channel flight one notes a marked difference between the French and English earthscapes. The French towns and villages seem to sprawl less than those of England, and the countryside in general is more compact and regular. The roads are straight and tree-bordered, so that they form almost as good a guide to an airman as the railways. In England the roads twist and twirl through each other like the threads of a spider's web, and failing rail or river or prominent landmarks, one usually steers by compass rather than trust to roads.
At Calais we turned to the right and followed a network of canals south-westward to Saint Gregoire, where was an aircraft depôt similar to the one at Rafborough. New machines call at Saint Gregoire before passing to the service of aerodromes, and in its workshops machines damaged but repairable are made fit for further service. It is also a higher training centre for airmen. Before they join a squadron pilots fresh from theirinstruction in England gain experience on service machines belonging to the "pool" at Saint Gregoire.
Having been told by telephone from my squadron that one of our pilots had been detailed to take the recently arrived bus to the Somme, I awaited his arrival and passed the time to good purpose in watching the aerobatics and sham fights of the pool pupils. Every now and then another plane from England would arrive high over the aerodrome, spiral down and land into the wind. The ferry-pilot who had brought me left for Rafborough almost immediately on a much-flown "quirk." The machine he had delivered at Saint Gregoire was handed over to a pilot from Umpty Squadron when the latter reported, and we took to the air soon after lunch. The puppy travelled by road over the last lap of his long journey, in the company of a lorry driver.
The bus headed east while climbing, for we had decided to follow the British lines as far as the Somme, a course which would be prolific in interesting sights, and which would make us eligible for that rare gift ofthe gods, an air-fight over friendly territory.
The coloured panorama below gave place gradually to a wilderness—ugly brown and pock-marked. The roads became bare and dented, the fields were mottled by shell-holes, the woods looked like scraggy patches of burnt furze. It was a district of great deeds and glorious deaths—the desolation surrounding the Fronts of yesterday and to-day.
North of Ypres we turned to the right and hovered awhile over this city of ghosts. Seen from above, the shell of the ancient city suggests a grim reflection on the mutability of beauty. I sought a comparison, and could think of nothing but the skeleton of a once charming woman. The ruins stood out in a magnificent disorder that was starkly impressive. Walls without roof, buildings with two sides, churches without tower, were everywhere prominent, as though proud to survive the orgy of destruction. The shattered Cathedral retained much of its former grandeur. Only the old Cloth Hall, half-razed and without arch or belfry, seemed to cry for vengeance on the vandalism thatwrecked it. The gaping skeleton was grey-white, as if sprinkled by the powder of decay. And one fancies that at night-time the ghosts of 1915 mingle with the ghosts of Philip of Spain's era of conquest and the ghosts of great days in other centuries, as they search the ruins for relics of the city they knew.
Left of us was the salient, studded with broken villages that became household names during the two epic Battles of Ypres. The brown soil was dirty, shell-ploughed, and altogether unlovely. Those strange markings, which from our height looked like the tortuous pathways of a serpent, were the trenches, old and new, front-line, support, and communication. Small saps projected from the long lines at every angle. So complicated was the jumble that the sinister region of No Man's Land, with its shell-holes, dead bodies, and barbed wire, was scarcely distinguishable.
A brown strip enclosed the trenches and wound northward and southward. Its surface had been torn and battered by innumerable shells. On its fringe, among the copses and crests, were the guns, thoughthese were evidenced only by an occasional flash. Behind, in front, and around them were those links in the chain of war, the oft-cut telephone wires. The desolation seemed utterly bare, though one knew that over and under it, hidden from eyes in the air, swarmed the slaves of the gun, the rifle, and the bomb.
Following the belt of wilderness southward, we were obliged to veer to the right at St. Eloi, so as to round a sharp bend. Below the bend, and on the wrong side of it, was the Messines Ridge, the recent capture of which has straightened the line as far as Hooge, and flattened the Ypres salient out of existence as a salient. Next came the torn and desolate outline of Plug Street Wood, and with it reminiscences of a splendid struggle against odds when shell-shortage hampered our 1915 armies. Armentières appeared still worthy to be called a town. It was battered, but much less so than Ypres, possibly because it was a hotbed of German espionage until last year. The triangular denseness of Lille loomed up from the flat soil on our left.
As we passed down the line the brownband narrowed until it seemed a strip of discoloured water-marked ribbon sewn over the mosaic of open country. The trench-lines were monotonous in their sameness. The shell-spotted area bulged at places, as for example Festubert, Neuve Chapelle (of bitter memory), Givenchy, Hulluch, and Loos. Lens, well behind the German trenches in those days, showed few marks of bombardment. The ribbon of ugliness widened again between Souchez and the yet uncaptured Vimy Ridge, but afterwards contracted as far as Arras, that ragged sentinel of the war frontier.
At Arras we entered our own particular province, which, after months of flying over it, I knew better than my native county. Gun-flashes became numerous, kite balloons hung motionless, and we met restless aeroplane formations engaged on defensive patrols. With these latter on guard our chance of a scrap with roving enemy craft would have been remote; though for that matter neither we nor they saw a single black-crossed machine throughout the afternoon.
From Gommecourt to the Somme was anarea of concentrated destruction. The wilderness swelled outwards, becoming twelve miles wide at parts. Tens of thousands of shells had pocked the dirty soil, scores of mine explosions had cratered it. Only the pen of a Zola could describe adequately the zone's intense desolation, as seen from the air. Those ruins, suggestive of abandoned scrap-heaps, were formerly villages. They had been made familiar to the world through matter-of-fact reports of attack and counter-attack, capture and recapture. Each had a tale to tell of systematic bombardment, of crumbling walls, of wild hand-to-hand fighting, of sudden evacuation and occupation. Now they were nothing but useless piles of brick and glorious names—Thiepval, Pozières, La Boiselle, Guillemont, Flers, Hardecourt, Guinchy, Combles, Bouchavesnes, and a dozen others.
Of all the crumbled roads the most striking was the long, straight one joining Albert and Bapaume. It looked fairly regular for the most part, except where the trenches cut it. Beyond the scrap-heap that once was Pozières two enormous quarries dipped intothe earth on either side of the road. Until the Messines explosion they were the largest mine craters on the western front. Farther along the road was the scene of the first tank raids, where on September 16 the metal monsters waddled across to the gaping enemy and ate up his pet machine-gun emplacements before he had time to recover from his surprise. At the road's end was the forlorn stronghold of Bapaume. One by one the lines of defence before it had been stormed, and it was obvious that the town must fall, though its capture was delayed until months later by a fierce defence at the Butte de Warlencourt and elsewhere. The advance towards Bapaume was of special interest to R.F.C. squadrons on the Somme, for the town had been a troublesome centre of anti-aircraft devilries. Our field-guns now being too close for Herr Archie, he had moved to more comfortable headquarters.
Some eight miles east of Bapaume the Bois d'Havrincourt stood out noticeably. Around old Mossy-Face, as the wood was known in R.F.C. messes, were clustered many Boche aerodromes. Innumerable duels hadbeen fought in the air-country between Mossy-Face and the lines. Every fine day the dwellers in the trenches before Bapaume saw machines swerving round each other in determined effort to destroy. This region was the hunting-ground of many dead notabilities of the air, including the Fokker stars Boelcke and Immelmann, besides British pilots as brilliant but less advertised.
Below the Pozières-Bapaume road were five small woods, grouped like the Great Bear constellation of stars. Their roots were feeding on hundreds of dead bodies, after each of the five—Trones, Mametz, Foureaux, Delville, and Bouleaux—had seen wild encounters with bomb and bayonet beneath its dead trees. Almost in the same position relative to the cluster of woods as is the North Star to the Great Bear, was a scrap-heap larger than most, amid a few walls yet upright. This was all that remained of the fortress of Combles. For two years the enemy strengthened it by every means known to military science, after which the British and French rushed in from opposite sides and met in the main street.
A few minutes down the line brought our machine to the sparkling Somme, the white town of Péronne, and the then junction of the British and French lines. We turned north-west and made for home. Passing over some lazy sausage balloons, we reached Albert. Freed at last from the intermittent shelling from which it suffered for so long, the town was picking up the threads of activity. The sidings were full of trucks, and a procession of some twenty lorries moved slowly up the road to Bouzincourt. As reminder of anxious days, we noted a few skeleton roofs, and the giant Virgin Mary in tarnished gilt, who, after withstanding bombardments sufficient to have wrecked a cathedral, leaned over at right angles to her pedestal, suspended in apparently miraculous fashion by the three remaining girders.
We flew once more over a countryside of multi-coloured crops and fantastic woods, and so to the aerodrome.
Snatches of familiar flying-talk, unheard during the past ten days of leave, floated from the tea-table as I entered the mess:"Folded up as he pulled out of the dive—weak factor of safety—side-slipped away from Archie—vertical gust—choked on the fine adjustment—made rings round the Hun—went down in flames near Douai."
The machine that "went down in flames near Douai" was piloted by the man whose puppy I had brought from England.